Facebook revenues rose above $10bn for the first time in 2014 after the social network made more money in the past three months than analysts were expecting.

The US company said full-year revenues hit $12.47bn as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg succeeded in steering advertisers to its mobile platform at a time when most of Facebook's users are using smartphones and tablets to access the website.

The impressive performance was capped by fourth-quarter sales of $3.85bn, exceeding Wall Street expectations of $3.77bn and boosted by a 53pc rise in year-on-year advertising revenues to $3.59bn. Mobile advertising made up 69pc of the fourth-quarter total.

Net profits rose to $701m in the three-month period, compared with $523m in 2013.

"We got a lot done in 2014," said Mr Zuckerberg. "Our community continues to grow and we're making progress towards connecting the world."

Advisters have been drawn to Facebook as more people use the company to stay in touch with friends and family.

The number of people using the site at least once a month hit 1.39bn, up from 1.23bn in the same quarter a year earlier. Most of this growth came outside the US, where the market is much more competitive. The number of people logging on at least once a day rose 18pc to 890m.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, told CNBC that the company now has 3bn video views per day, a jump from 1bn in September. Facebook has been increasingly focused on improving its video offering recent months in a bid to attract more users and advertisers to the site.

Facebook said that the number of users on its Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp sites topped 300m, 500m, and 700m respectively.

The shares fell 3pc in after-hours trading after closing up 0.6pc at $76.24.